My PC problem.

[Anders]

Having a few problems with my PC and I’m wondering if it’s hardware or windows related. It’s been a while since I reinstalled, but I don’t want to waste all that time to find the problems are still there.

Does anyone know of any good hardware testing programs? I’ve used MemTest86 to test my RAM, it comes up with errors in test 5 and 8. I replaced the RAM with new stuff, and oh dear still errors. So I’m left wondering if there could be a problem elsewhere.

Symptoms:
Windows 2000 freezes sometimes when I open a new Netscape or I.E. window. When using Netscape, the new window doesn’t appear. When the cursor moves over the task bar the busy timer cursor is displayed. I can close all windows, but do nothing with the task bar. I can control-alt-delete still, but shutting down doesn’t work. Under IE all program windows freeze. I can try and end the I.E. windows, but it says it can’t because they are being debugged? I happens intermittently, although seems to be getting more often.

Windows XP:
When playing Vice City the game will crash to a white flashing screen after a few minutes of play. Playing Half-Life it happens, but rarely, and only ever after playing for a while. These are the only two new games I’ve been playing recently.

It could be that the two problems are unrelated, but it’s the Windows XP problem that looks the worst to me.

Thanks,

Anders.

[Kezzer]

Well if it's RAM errors and graphics problems it could be related to the motherboard.

[Austin]

Firstly could you post your spec as completely as possible? Secondly is this a problem that's gradually become worse, popped up suddenly ... ie. has your PC ever worked 100% and was any hw or sw different before? Thirdly be sure everything is running stock (ie no o/c's, slow RAM timings etc), have you ever o/c'ed?

I would certainly say it would be either RAM or mobo related but the CPU or PSU could also be faulty although like a virus infection I'd say they're very unlikely in this case. There's a few free antivirus programs free on the net. You tried diff RAM (presumably known to work at the req'd speed) so that would suggest the mobo is the most liekly culprit. Have you tried your RAM in another PC just to check it is working? Basically it would seem that Windows (and presumably other files on the HD) have become corrupted usually caused by a faulty RAM, CPU or mobo. A fresh install is certainly what I'd suggest BUT probably pointless (or impossible) until you figure out the cause of corruption. If you get too stuck you could try each of your parts in a working PC to find the culprit(s), rem the RAM may run fine at 100mhz but at 200mhz it may be unstable even if it is rated to that speed so bear those things in mind.

[SilentDeath]

id say definatly mobo, the fact tests 5 and 8 fail on memtest shows that its due to tempory corruptioon in memory, probably caused by mobo as uve tryed different sticks (unless they were clocked past what hey should have been - check timings, fsb ratio, and ran voltage) also ull want to check ur pci and agp buses r in spec - should be 33/66mhz.

definatly a hardware problem (but it might not be noticable one normaly - could be very minor not the cuase) that needs sorting, test ur ram sticks seperatly in the mobo, and try at low speeds like 100fsb/200ddr and work ur way up. also check ur north bridges fan isnt dead and is seated properly.

if u boot to windows with the mem/mobo corruption not sorted ur hdd data WILL have high chance of getting corrupted, not a good thing!

[Anders]

Hi, sorry this is so long, put everything down just in case it helps:

CPU:
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ Tbred
Mobo:
ABit KR7A-RAID
RAM:
512MB Crucial PC2100 (CT6464Z265)
Graphics Card:
Gainward GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB GoldenSample (Ti 4200, 128MB DDR, Video-in/Video-out, DVI)
PSU:
Sparkle 400watt (FSP400-60GN)
CPU Cooler:
Alpha PAL 8045
HDD:
Maxtor 6 L040J2 (40GB ATA133)
Maxtor 5 3073U6 (30GB ATA66)
Both on the onboard Highpoint HPT372 RAID Controller, but not in a RAID array.
DVD/CD:
Pioneer DVD-ROM (DVD-106 Region Free)
LG CD-RW-8080B (8x4x32)
Also listed under my DVD drives is an “AXV CD/DVD-ROM SCSI CdRom Device”, not noticed this before, and have no other CD/DVD Drives, I recently installed Alcohol 120%, could be to do with that?
Disk Drives:
Iomega ZIP 100
A Floppy Drive
Modem:
Modular Technology v.92 Serial Modem
Network Card:
BUFFALO LGY-PCI-TXC Fast Ethernet Adapter (disabled because I don’t have a LAN at home)
Soundcard:
Soundblaster Live 5.1
Monitor:
Hansol 710P
Other Cooling:
Coolermaster Cool Drive 4002 on the 40GB HDD, Rear 80mm outtake fan, Forward 80mm intake fan, Two Side 120mm Intake fans and one of those cheapo flat system exhaust fan just under the graphics card.
Other:
A Bluetooth USB Dongle, PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard

The computer has been working flawlessly for ages. The problems started around a month ago and have been getting worse. First I.E. played up, I just blamed it on MS&I.E. being rubbish and swapped to Netscape. Vice City and Half-Life started playing up around two weeks ago, and about three days ago Netscape started playing up.

Everything is currently running at stock, I’ve tried to pick out what I think is important from the BIOS:
1800+ @ 133 x11.5, Dividers = 4:2:1
Default Voltage (Core = 1.5, I/O = 3.5, DDR = 2.55)
DQ Control = Centre DQ, CPU Fast Decode = Ultra
DRAM Clock = 133 MHz
DRAM Timing = By SPD (CAS Latency = 2.5, Bank Interleave = Disabled, Precharge to Active (Trp) = 3T, Active to Precharge (Tras) = 6T, Active to CMD (Trcd) = 3T)
DRAM command Rate = 2T
DRAM Queue Depth = 4 level
AGP Aperture Size = 128MB
AGP Mode = 4x
AGP Driving Control = Auto

I’ve overclocked the processor and graphics card mildly in the past, but when the hot weather came I decided I would put them back to stock because the performance difference wasn’t that much. I used a 12x multiplier on the CPU (i.e. clocked as a 1900+). The graphics card I used with the “enhanced” settings on the software that comes with it. Enhanced = Core@260Mhz & Memory Clock Settings@520MHz, Safe (currently set at) = Core@250MHz & Memory Clock Settings@444MHz. I’ve never overclocked using the FSB.

I’ve had up to date Norton Anti Virus installed on both OSs since they were setup. I’ve never connected to the Internet with Windows XP, I only use Windows 2000 for that.

The RAM is a new RMA replacement from Crucial (oops!), so should be fine, unfortunately I don’t have another DDR mobo to try it in. I have my old Graphics Card and CPU kicking around so I could try them to see what happens. I’ll also try putting the FSB down to 100Mhz. Northbridge fan is fine, but I did notice the heat sink was quite dusty the other day so cleaned it out. Eeek, don’t want my HDD getting corrupted.

[Thorburn]

tried setting everything to Fail Safe Defaults?

[Austin]

After a quick glance there's certainly nothing really fishy there. IIRC I/O voltage should be 3.3v, check the mobo for jumpers or the BIOS as 3.5v is used for o/c'ing and not usually needed (it can damage your components). Your XP1800+ Tbred 1.5v should run very cool, so heat really shouldn't be any problem. KT266A is a nice chipset and the Abit is one of the best ones, totally designed for 266FSB which you're using and have always used which should rule out unusual IDE/PCI/AGP speeds. However it does specify that it doesn't have full compatibility with Tbreds and will only work up to XP2000+, still shouldn't be an issue if you stayed below 1.67ghz (XP2000+). Crucial is top notch RAM and as said you changed it anyway. Your gfx card is also very good as is your PSU, that's not to say they couldn't develop faults but it's good to have quality components. Some of Gainward's GF4TI were known to develop a fault but the gfx card couldn't corrupt your OS or HD, just result in instability and even then only likely when gaming.

To test your HDs you could use a little program from Maxtor intended for RMA's, it may need to format though, are you backed up? It could be the RAID playing up, do you get probs in XP & 2000? You could get hold of a new 80GB HD as they are very cheap now (< £60), allowing you to do a fresh install or test your current HDs without data loss. I'm not sure what “AXV CD/DVD-ROM SCSI CdRom Device” is about. You may be best to try the latest drivers and ideally mobo BIOS but it shouldn't matter if the PC was stable before.

Soundblaster Live is known to be VERY quirky and seriously hogs the CPU and PCI bus (known to be weak on < KT400). I doubt that's your problem as your PC worked before. You could still take out your PCI cards and disable onboard stuff but a fresh OS install would probably needed as it woulds seem you have experienced corruption. For example if it was something to do with the RAID chip moving the HD(s) to IDE (even short term) wouldn't help if the data has been corrupted.

If you've tried diff RAM it would make sense to try diff gfx card, PSU and CPU to be thorough but again it may not help unless you have a fresh OS (partition?) to use. You could disable the L1 and/or L2 CPU caches if the BIOS lets you, perf will suck but that would be enough to cause crashes and corruption, enable if it doesn't help (again you need a working install to test stability with).

[Anders]

Looked at the HDD tester from Maxtor and it does wipe all the data on the HDD because it does a low level format. Tried lowering the I/O voltage, but there were only two BIOS settings, 3.5v and 3.65v.

I put the CPU Fast Decode to "normal" instead of "ultra" and put the CPU multiplier down as low as possible, which I think was x5, but the Memtest86 errors still occurred. However, I found that if I lower the FSB and DRAM clock to 100Mhz, with dividers of 3:2:1, the Memtest86 errors go away. I raised the CPU multipliers back up with the 100MHz FSB and still no errors occurred . I can play Vice City without it crashing (which is hours so far); previously Vice City would crash in a few minutes so I’m taking this as a positive sign.

Windows 2000 still has problems, but I think that because files are corrupt. Forgot to mention that sometimes when Windows 2000 starts it asks for the 2K CD because some critical files have been changed, oops, sorry.

Not sure if this tells me much though because lowering the FSB slows all the other parts, e.g. AGP is running at 100/2MHz, damn dividers.

Guess I need to try those other parts; it’s just such a pain in the butt.

[SilentDeath]

looks like its ur mobo ur ram dieing on u then. put everything to stock and check ur dividers to make sure pci = ~33mhz and agp = ~66mhz. then lower fsb by 5mhz untill it stops erroroing in memtest86. this should fix all the problems then u just ened to reinstall (over the top if u want to risk it, ull have corrupted files but could save some non corruptones f uve go tany u want to keep)
also once uve got the fs lower and it fixes the problem, change dividers to get the bus back as close as u can to the stock speeds, u should be stable upto 44mhz pci bus and 76mhz on agp at a guess, not that ive tryed it (never clocked much on old mobo)

[Anders]

I tried to check if the northbridge heatsink is set ok (the fan works fine). I read that Abit tend to be poor at applying the termal paste. However, I can’t work out how to remove the heatsink, doh. There are wierd plastic things holding it on, not screws like I was expecting. Anyone know how to do this? I can’t seem to find any instruction in Google. I hope I don’t have to remove the mobo as that is a major pain in the butt.

[Behemoth]

Might be worth upgrading your mobo mate, KR7A Raid is a bitout dated now.

[Austin]

www.dabs.com quicklinx=2Q7L

http://www.dabs.com/products/prod-in...quicklinx=2Q7L

An unbelievable £40 for nForce2. Relates to Biostar M7NCD and checking their info reveals you get all the 400FSB and other goodness but lack Dual Channel (small perf hit, eg 4%) and no full nVidia onboard audio but you so get LAN! Shoud be good ... and definitely a HUGE upgrade from your current mobo. Just imagine saving up for a XP1700+ TbredB (£40) or XP2500+ Barton (£70) which should allow you to get XP3000+ to XP3200+. You will need DDR, pref PC3200 and a nice HSF for a new CPU (VOlcano 11 is £15).

http://www.biostar.com.tw/products/m...hp3?name=M7NCD

[Anders]

Well I’m not beat yet, I still want to check under my northbridge heatsink if anyone can help?

If my current mobo is bust then I guess upgrading is the way forward. Am I right in thinking the Biostar M7NCD doesn’t have RAID? Therefore my HDDs would have to share with my (slower) DVD and CD-RW. What about upgrading properly (if I can afford it) and getting an Abit NF7-s, which would last me longer? With PC3200 would I not be able to get much out of my XP1800, I thought they clocked pretty well? But I’m still far from being one hundred percent certain it’s a mobo fault.

Oooh, does anyone else find it hard to find what they want in dabs? Overall it seem a really bad lay out if you want to browse.

[Austin]

NB HS/HSF are attached in a variety of ways, usually taking the mobo out is req'd, often just pins holding it in underneath. The Biostar M7NCD doesn’t have RAID but a PCI RAID card shoudl be pretty cheap. Komplett have a special on NF7-S v2.0 at the mo for a bargain £79 IIRC! There you get the full nVidia audio, Firewire, USB2, Dual Channel, RAID (IIRC via SATA), SATA, PATA-to-SATA adapter etc.

XP1800+ can come with 3 cores which make a BIG diff...

1. Pally = Hot and likely max is XP2100+ speed, always locked so FSB only.
2. TbredA = Cool but 8 layers inhibit o/c'ing so XP2200+ is about tops, often unlocked.
3. TbredB = Cool with 9 layers and capable of at least XP2600+ and an unofficial XP3000+ is very common. Always unlocked so plenty of flexibility too.

The above cores are possible in all AthlonXP up to XP2100+, at least TbredB is guaranteed in XP2400+ and above. The other common core is Barton but that's only in XP2500+, XP2800+, XP3000+ and XP3200+. It has twice the L2 cache so you get a 5% speed boost clock for clock. Also a cool runner and always unlocked too, all 333FSB by default though.

[Austin]

To find what you want in Dabs, simply go to the homepage then select 'SHOP BY: Product Type' (top left underneath LOGIN and HOME | PRODUCTS headings. I find it one of the best to see what you want and also to get all the info and links you need, I guess it can take some getting used to though.

[eldren]

I would like to point out that Memtest86 does detect CPU errors. If, on the tests in which it gives errors, the "correct" answer and the answer that the machine actually gives differs by the exact same number, then it may be your CPU. For example:

Correct : Your answer : Error bits
00000000 : 00000004 : 00000004
88888888 : 88888884 : 00000004
FFFFFFFFF : FFFFFFFFB : 00000004

This is what happened with an old AMD 5x86 rig of mine. Replaced the CPU, works perfectly. Now runs as my smoothwall rig.